


Special Delivery

by rivkat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Eight crazy nights, Gen, Men of Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For stoatsandwich's prompt: One where John (and therefore his sons) were raised as Men of Letters. What's MoL!John like? What's MoL!Dean like?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Special Delivery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/gifts).



“I know what you’ve been doing, Dean,” Dad said from his place at the kitchen table.

Dean froze in the doorway but didn’t turn. His face would give even more away. “I swear, I’ll have that engine back like it was—”

“I’m not talking about the motorcycles.” His voice was heavy, final. 

Dean closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his resolve. Sam always yelled at him about how he gave in (only to their father; Sam never minded when Dean did what _he_ wanted). He breathed out and faced his father. He was crisp-edged in the brightness of the kitchen, and Dean found himself taking a step into the room even as his shoulders wanted to pull into his spine.

Dad scrutinized him, like he was wondering where his dutiful son had gone. “You _know_ we don’t intervene in simple hauntings.”

Dean swallowed, and hated the tell. “Five people unnaturally dead in two years. How is that not our business?”

“Because it’s not! We aren’t hunters, Dean.” Dad’s contempt for the concept was almost a physical force.

“Yeah, and maybe if you’d ever let us talk to some, I could’ve told one what we found out and had them take care of it!” Dean would’ve passed on the information about the ghost, if he’d known who to give it to. Okay, probably he would’ve passed it on instead of going to burn the bones himself. Almost for sure, since he’d known that this one was going to be hard to keep from Dad. 

The expression that crossed his father’s face was right out of his childhood memories from the months—years—after Mom died. Dad’s fury had always been able to make him cringe, and now was no exception. Dad had beaten it into Dean’s head that hunting was off limits to them, that hunters were brutal and untrustworthy and as likely to get everyone killed as to save them. But there was a girl alive today who wouldn’t have been without him and Sam. 

“Tell me your brother dragged you on this distraction.”

Dean clenched his jaw and shook his head. 

His father slapped the table and rose. “Dammit, Dean—”

“No!” Dean roared, surprising himself—and Dad, from the looks of it. “No, uh-uh. You know what? I don’t need _Sam_ to tell me when people need saving. You know as well as I do that Men of Letters didn’t always hide in the shadows.”

And Dad had him up against the cold tile wall, hands fisted in Dean’s shirt. “And you _know_ why we do now, and why we can’t be talking to any hunters. There are _demons_ after your brother.” Dad’s eyes were burning beneath his knotted brows. He released Dean, pushing himself a few inches back. “When you pull reckless stunts like this, it makes me wonder how I can trust you to take care of Sam.”

_Trust me?_ Dean thought, even as the words died in his throat. _Who made him dinner in this kitchen, all those times you couldn’t make it? Who made sure he got to school every day?_ But all he could see was Dad’s bone-deep fear for Sam. And he couldn’t explain how he’d initiated the trip because Sam always got more loose-lipped after Dean had participated with him on some small defiance, and because Sam had clearly had something on his mind. 

Sure enough, Sam had confessed on the way back from the salt-and-burn that his dreams were coming more often now, even when he slept in the warded room, and that he thought maybe he was starting to be able to move stuff with his mind (you can’t tell anyone, Dean, they’ll lock me in the dungeon and then they’ll start experimenting, promise me, Dean, you can’t even tell Dad). 

All that added up to only one answer. “I’m sorry, Dad.” Dean lowered his eyes. His chest felt tenderized, his heart pounding an irregular beat. 

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” Dad said, because Dean couldn’t even get this right. “Tell me it won’t happen again.”

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, his stomach twisting. “It won’t.”

“I want to believe you,” Dad said. The hell of it was, Dad was right to suspect: next time Sam found another supernatural killer, something they knew how to fight, they’d most likely sneak out again. They’d let too many people die already.

“I’ll take care of Sam,” Dean promised, because that was the truth. 

Dad snorted, but with less disbelief than before. 

Dean moved aside so that Dad could leave. Then Dean set about cleaning up, washing Dad’s coffee mug and starting on the dishes that had been soaking in the sink. 

One thing was for sure: Dean _would_ protect Sam. Even if that meant protecting him from Dad and the other Men of Letters. A day might come when they’d need to prove their worth to the hunters and earn sanctuary from the only other group that understood that there was a secret war on between humanity and every other malevolent thing that roamed the earth. Having some vampires and werewolves under their belts was an investment he was willing to make, despite his father’s wrath.

Of course, hunters wouldn’t like Sam’s visions any better than the Men of Letters would—their lack of knowledge might even make them more likely to kill Sam outright, instead of stringing him up to see what they could squeeze out of him like grandpa and the others would.

Either way, Dean and Sam needed to be able to handle themselves in the world outside, without backup. Dean knew he wasn’t a quarter of the scholar Sam was, not even if Sam were drunk and down one eye; more Man of Junk Mail than Man of Letters. But he could handle a weapon when he needed to, and that meant he wasn’t entirely useless.

“How much of that did you hear?” he asked, his head still bent over the sink.

“Enough,” Sam said. (How someone as overgrown as Sam could move so quietly was a mystery to Dean, but he hadn’t needed to hear anything to know that Sam was in the vicinity.) “Dean—”

“Don’t,” he warned, because the last thing he needed was a lecture on the difference between himself and a doormat. 

Sam sighed. Dean went and opened the refrigerator, rooting around until he found some sliced turkey and the Gouda Sam liked. When he put the sandwich down in front of Sam, Sam caught his wrist.

“I know it’s not easy for you,” Sam said. 

_Me?_ Dean wanted to say. _I’m not the one with the freaky psychic powers._ But those were words he’d never speak in this place, not where the walls might (literally) have ears. “It’s not supposed to be easy,” he said instead. “It’s the mission, right? Preserve and protect.”

“You know, ‘preserved’ is another word for mummified, which means dead. What use is dead knowledge?” 

“Do I look like a freakin’ philosopher?” Dean asked, but he couldn’t help smiling just a little. Sam arguing with him was Sam not depressed and secretive. Plus, their little ghost-destroying jaunt gave him enough ammo against Sam’s ‘we never use any of this information, Dean, this life is like being in bondage, why don’t we see the world’ blah blah blah for a good three weeks, minimum. “Eat your damn sandwich.”

Sam rolled his eyes and took a bite. Dean slapped him on the shoulder, then went to put away the food so that he wouldn’t try to hug Sam. 

“’m making progress on that Greek translation,” Sam said through his food. “There’s this description of how to talk to angels. Think you’re up to building an altar?”

“Angels?” Dean shook his head. “Sammy—”

“Not askin’ you to believe,” Sam mumbled, then swallowed. “Just asking you to build.”

Dean made a production of sighing. “Your birthday’s coming up, guess I gotta get you something.”

Sam smirked up at him, hair falling into his eyes. “Yeah, you do.”

Angels, for fuck’s sake. Like there was anyone looking after this earthly shitshow. And if there was, then Dean _definitely_ didn’t want to hear their excuses for allowing all the horrors out there, mundane and supernatural both. But, Sammy was Sammy and liked to get his geek on, and anyway building this altar thing would give Dean something to do while he thought about their next moves.

Dad wasn’t going to let Sam and Dean’s little saving-people side trips slide forever, now that he’d caught on. When the big blowout happened, they’d have to be ready to stand on their own for a while. 

It didn’t matter. Dean had picked Sam up in a burning house and, in a way, he’d never put Sam down. That wasn’t going to change even if they had to leave here. 

That wasn’t ever going to change.


End file.
